He glanced out the window at Bleecker Street, overcast this icy January afternoon. No sign of anyone in trench coat and fedora, pretending not to surveil the store while doing just that. There wasn’t any reason to believe he was under suspicion. But in these days, in this city, you could never be too careful.
Cracco rang up another sale, then gave his wife a brief nod. She dusted her hands together with sharp slaps and stepped to the register. He went into the back room, the kitchen, where the ovens were now cool. It was noon, late in the daily life of a bakery; the alchemy of turning such varying ingredients—powders and crystals and gels and liquids—into transcendent sustenance occurred early. He arose every morning at 3:30, swapped pajamas for shirt and dungarees and, careful not to wake Violetta and Beppe and Cristina, descended the steep stairs of their apartment on West Fourth Street. Smoking one of the four cigarettes he allowed himself each day, primo, he walked here, fired up the ovens, and got to work.
Now, Cracco pulled the apron over his head and, as was his nature, folded it carefully before placing it in a laundry bin. He took a horsehair brush and swiped at his slacks and shirt, watching the flour dust motes ease into the air. He reached into his pocket and retrieved the dollar bill that Geller, the liver-spot man, had given him. He read the careful handwriting. Yes, as he’d guessed. This was the moment: the final piece of the plan, the last stage of the recipe to bake revenge into bitter bread and force it down the enemy’s throat.
A look at his Breil watch, crafted in Italy, a present from his father, also a baker. The timepiece was simple but elegant, the numbers bright and bold against the dark face.
It was time to leave.
Cracco lit a cigarette, secundo, and before the match guttered out, he set fire to Geller’s note and let it curl to ash in one of the ovens. He pulled on his greatcoat and wrapped a scarf around his neck, then topped on his gray fedora. His gloves were cloth and threadbare, worn through completely on the right thumb, but he could not afford to replace them just yet. The shop provided only a modest income, thanks to the war. And, of course, he did not undertake his work for Geller for money, unless you counted the spy paying him one dollar for a fifteen-cent loaf of bread.
Luca Cracco stepped outside as flurries began to fall, frosting the walk, just as he himself might sprinkle powdered sugar on a bigné di San Giuseppe, the Roman puff pastry baked just before St. Joseph’s day in March.
“You have confirmation? You really do?”
But Murphy was being Murphy and that meant he wouldn’t be rushed. The man continued in a quick, staccato voice: “I was following him last night. All night. And he goes into the Rialto on Forty-Second Street. You know, Gaslight was still playing. After all these months. You can’t get enough of her. Who can? She’s bee-u-tiful. Dontcha think?” Ingrid Bergman, he was speaking of. “Of course, she is. Come on, Tommy. No actress prettier. Agree.”
Jack Murphy worked for Tom Brandon and, when they’d been in the army, had been lower in rank. But another man’s superior status, boss or commander, never figured much in Murphy’s reckoning (except for the one time he was given a decoration by President Roosevelt himself. Murphy had blushed and used the word “sir.” Brandon had been there. He was still surprised at the show of respect.)
Murphy rocked back in the chair. Brandon wondered if the agent would plop his flashy two-tone oxfords, black and white, on Brandon’s desk. But he didn’t. “And whatta you think happens, boss?” The small curly-haired man—taut as a spring—didn’t even seem to be asking a question. “So, the host at the theater does the four-piece place setting giveaway—trashy stuff from Gimbels—and the organist plays a few tunes, then the lights go down and, bango, time for the newsreels.” Murphy ran a hand through his locks, which were red, of course.
“We were talking about confirmation,” Brandon tried.
“I hear you, boss. But listen. No, really. The newsreels, I’m saying. There was one about the Battle of the Bulge.”
Terrible, the German offensive that had started in December of ’44, a month ago. The Allies were making progress, but the battle was still raging.
“And what does he do?” This tiny pistol of a man pointed his finger at his superior and said, “The minute the announcer mentioned the German high command, he takes off his hat.”
Brandon, who resembled nothing so much as a balding shoe salesman at Marshall Field’s in his native Chicago, was perplexed.
But Murphy didn’t notice. Or, more likely, he did. But he didn’t care. He said to the ceiling, “Does that mean Hauptman’s a spy? Does that mean he’s a saboteur? No. I’m not saying that. I’m saying that we need to keep watching him.”
The him was a German American mechanic who lived in Queens and who had had some nebulous ties to the American Nazi Party before the war and had recently been seen wandering past the Norden, as in bomb-sight, factory, not so very far from where the men now sat.
And so Murphy was on the case like Sam Spade after a cheating husband.